He figured he’d ducked a bigger missile when he’d called off the wedding.
So much for true love.
Grabbing the remote for the small television balanced upon the filing cabinet, he skimmed through his e-mail. Half listening to the news as he waited for a sports report and an update on the Saints, he’d started reading through a dozen other pieces of e-mail when he caught the end of a news report on the television.
“…missing from the campus of All Saints College since before Christmas, the coed was last seen here, in Cramer Hall, by her roommate on December eighteenth around four-thirty.”
Jay swung all of his attention to the screen, where a female reporter in a blue parka, battling wind and rain in a threatening sky, was staring into the camera. The report had been taped in front of the brick edifice of the dorm in which Kristi Bentz had lived years ago as a freshman. An image of Kristi as she was then, with her long, auburn hair, athletic body, and deep set, intelligent eyes, sizzled through his brain. He’d been stupid about her back then, certain she was “the one.” Of course since that time, he’d learned how wrong he’d been. Thankfully she’d broken it off, and he’d avoided a marriage that would’ve certainly ended up a trap for both of them. Talk about a screwed up family!
“…Since that day, a week before Christmas,” the reporter was saying, “no one has seen Rylee Ames alive.” A picture of the twenty-ish girl flashed onto the screen. With blue eyes, streaked, blond hair, and a bright smile, Rylee Ames looked like the quintessential “California girl,” a cheerleader type, though the reporter was saying that she’d attended high school in Tempe, Arizona, and Laredo, Texas.
“This is Belinda Del Rey, reporting for WMTA, in Baton Rouge.”
Rylee Ames. The name sounded familiar.
Bothered, Jay quickly logged onto the college’s Web site and checked his class list, one that was updated as students added or dropped classes from their schedules. The first name on his roster was Ames, Rylee.
His cop radar was on full alert and he had to slow his mind from reeling onto one horrifying scenario after another. Rape, torture, murder—he’d seen so many violent crimes, but he tried not to leap to any conclusions, not yet. There was no evidence that she’d met with foul play, just that she was missing.
Kids her age dropped out, changed colleges, or took off on ski vacations or to rock concerts without telling anyone. For that matter she could have eloped.
But maybe not. He’d worked at the crime lab in New Orleans long enough to have a bad feeling about this student he’d never met. He took another swallow of beer and read lower on the roster.
Arnette, Jordan.
Bailey, Wister.
Braddock, Ira.
Bentz, Kristi.
Calloway, Hiram.
Crenshaw, Geoffrey.
Wait! What?
Bentz, Kristi?
His eyes narrowed on the screen, zeroing in on the familiar name that still had an impact that sent his blood pressure soaring.
No way! She was haunting his thoughts!
Kristi Bentz couldn’t be in his class! Could not! What kind of cruel twist of fate or irony would that be? But there her name was, big as life. He wasn’t foolish enough to think it might be another student with the same name. He had to face the fact that for three hours each week on Monday nights, he’d see her again.
Crap!
The rain pummeled the windows and he stared at the class roster as if mesmerized. Images of Kristi flitted through his mind: Long hair flying as she ran from him through a forest, the play of shadowy light catching her through the canopy of branches, her laughter infectious; emerging from a swimming pool, water dripping from her toned body, her smile triumphant if she’d won the meet, her frown deep and impenetrable if she’d lost; lying beneath him on a blanket in the back of his truck, moonlight shimmering against her perfect body.
“Stop it!” he said out loud, and Bruno, ever vigilant, was on his feet in an instant, barking gruffly. “No, boy, it’s…it’s nothing.” Jay promptly shut out the stupid, visceral images of his horny youth. He hadn’t seen Kristi in over five years and he figured she’d changed. And for all his romantic fantasies about her, there were other images that weren’t quite as nice. Kristi had a temper and a razor sharp tongue.
He’d figured long ago that he was well rid of her.
But the truth was, he’d read and heard about her brushes with death, about her dealings with madmen, about her long stint in the hospital recovering from the latest attack, and he’d felt bad, even going so far as to call a florist to send her flowers before changing his mind. Kristi was like a bad habit, one a man couldn’t quite shake. Jay was fine as long as he didn’t hear about her, read about her, or see her. All those old emotions were locked away under carefully guarded keys. He’d been interested in other women. He’d been engaged, hadn’t he? Still, having to see her on a weekly basis…
It would probably be good for him, he decided suddenly. “Character building” as his mother used to say whenever he was in trouble and had to pay the price of punishment, usually at the hands of his father.
“Hell,” he muttered under his breath as the truth of the matter sank in. His jaw slid to one side and for a second he let himself fantasize about teaching a class where Kristi was his student, where she would have to be under his scrutiny, his control. Jesus! What was he thinking? He’d decided long ago that never seeing her again was just fine. Now it looked like he’d be staring at her face for three hours once a week.
Draining his beer, he slammed the empty bottle onto his desk. He hadn’t altered his whole damned work schedule, started working ten-hour shifts, gone through the headache of changing his whole life only to have to see Kristi every week. His jaw clenched so hard it ached.
Maybe she’d drop his class. The second she realized he was stepping in for Dr. Monroe, Kristi would probably alter her schedule. No doubt she didn’t want to see him any more than he wanted to deal with her. And the thought that he would be her teacher would probably really bug her. She’d resign from his class. Of course she would.
Good.
He read the rest of the class list of thirty-five students interested in criminology—make that thirty-four. His gaze drifted back to the first name on the list: Rylee Ames. Disturbed, Jay scratched at the stubble on his chin.
What the hell had happened to her?
CHAPTER 2
“…No loud music, no pets, no smoking, it’s all here in the lease,” Irene Calloway said, though she herself smelled suspiciously of cigarette smoke. In her early seventies with a few short wisps of gray hair poking from under a red beret, Irene was as thin as a rail beneath her faded baggy jeans and oversized T-shirt. Her jacket was a man’s flannel shirt and she peered at Kristi through thick glasses. She and Kristi were seated at a small scarred table in the furnished studio apartment on the third floor. The place had a bit of charm with its dormers, old fireplace, plank floors, and watery glass windows. It was cozy and quiet and Kristi couldn’t believe her luck in finding the place. Irene jabbed a long, gnarled finger at the fine print of the lease.
“I read it,” Kristi assured her, though the copy she’d been faxed had been blurry. Wasting no more time, she signed both sets of the six-month lease and handed one back to her new landlady.
“You’re not married?”
“No.”
“No kids?”
Kristi bristled as she shook her head. Irene’s questions were a little too personal.
“No boyfriend? The lease stipulates only one person up here.” She motioned